The government has broken its promise to ensure that rural areas benefit from new policies, according to its advisers on the countryside.

Its Rural White Paper pledged to ensure all departments would take account of the needs of those in the countryside when making policy.

There are severe shortcomings in many departments

Ewen CameronCountryside Agency

And the government asked the Countryside Agency to monitor how this "rural proofing" was working.

But 18 months later, in its first report on the exercise, the agency says government policymakers are still not "thinking rural".

Affordable housing

It says most government departments have taken initial steps - but only half have done more than the bare minimum.

And much of rural England has yet to see any difference, according to agency chairman Ewen Cameron.

His organisation says more than one in five people in England live in the countryside.

They remain worried about the shortage of affordable housing, continuing post office and magistrates' courts closures, problems accessing health care, difficulties with public transport and bureaucracy, according to the agency.